In our ever-increasingly stimulus-saturated world, many hands are wrung over the question of how to engage and steward our adolescents’ sustained attention, or the ability to stay focused over long periods of time. For example, neuroscientists have found that while predictive processing tended to reach maturity in the brain around age 12, with development more or less stopping then, sustained attention in contrast continued to mature into adulthood. These same neuroscientists have identified sustained attention as crucial to the optimization of sensory processing, the brain’s ability to accurately perceive and interpret the ever-growing load of sensory inputs presented by our world.
Attention Deficit and Its Discontents
Now, if you’re familiar with the terms sustained attention and sensory processing, it is as likely as not that you recognize them from lists of aspects of brain functioning that can be impaired by attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. That may have been the very search term that brought you to this website. ADHD diagnosis has been growing in prevalence among children and teenagers for decades, and has been associated with effects as wide ranging as academic underperformance and an increased likelihood of being involved in a car accident – and research suggests that, with or without a diagnosis of ADHD, optimizing sustained attention and sensory processing are both deeply interrelated and critical to maximizing the growth potential of the developing adolescent brain.
The Tomatis Method: A Holistic, Non-Invasive Approach
Again, if you are browsing our website in the first place, it is likely that the above is not exactly news to you. You are also likely aware that the most popular treatment approaches for ADHD in teenagers, namely medication-based interventions or behavioral therapy, seek to address the impairments imparted by ADHD on the levels of body chemistry and operant conditioning, respectively. Less well-known, however, is a unique technique that since 1955 has been supported by a growing body of research, and seeks to act on sensory processing itself, by way of music: the Tomatis Method. Dr. Tomatis’ training approach has since evolved. As a clinician and researcher, Dr. Sacarin has been at the forefront of the advanced applications and development of sound training. Today she engages qEEG based Neurofeedback with sound training, Heart Rate Variability and counseling to help children and adults with complex presentations.
At the core, Dr. Tomatis’ Method is a form of auditory stimulation training that engages the brain’s neuroplasticity in order to support the natural processes of maturation in the brain. Through targeted stimulation, the participant is encouraged to develop new and stronger pathways for information processing without the need for chemicals or even very much active effort at all. Dr. Liliana Sacarin’s mastery of the techniques originated by Dr. Alfred Tomatis in the 1950s enables her to assess in depth and also design personalized training sequences that target the particular aspects of functioning that most need support, from attention to sensory processing to executive functioning and beyond.
If you feel you or your child could benefit from a novel approach to treating attention deficit that does not rely on medication, or if you are simply seeking a complement to an existing regimen of that kind, reach out to Dr. Sacarin for a free consultation or read more about our approaches here ADHD Therapy | Dr. Sacarin Listening Center | Seattle, WA
